Dry Eyes

[Mose]

To begin with, I have to apologise. After having an online scizophrenic episode I was called a false prophet by Twebbers and I left in my signature box that "there was no fear of god on tweb" and that I would leave the website forever. I am now willingly taking medication for Schizophrenia and have been for almost 10 months now, I realize that creating the blog that I did was probably one of the worst mistakes I've ever made and I'm sorry for it. Not that anybody else has to live with the embarrassment but I'm also sorry that I took a 'holier than thou' attitude, I'm sure there are people on Tweb who fear God. I pray to God that I'm not a false prophet and that it was a mistake that could be explained on psychiatric terms. I also want to apologise for becoming such a troll, my last 2 posts were terrible.

Now that that's out of the way, about 8 years ago I went to an eye doctor and with a little strip that he put in my eye he told me that I have dry eyes, at the time I couldn't feel it and wouldn't have known. But, he said my eyes weren't producing as much tears as they should. I went around just fine until about 5 years ago, I got placed on a certification and put on risperdal. The first thing that happened to me was that my eyes dried up and I was certain the medication would make me go blind. Back then I used to hold my eye lids open until my eyes got so dry that a gush of tears would pour out and I used to find relief that way. Nowadays I can't even do that my eyes won't produce tears for nothing. I'm on restasis now and it does it's job but it's still not the cure for dry eyes. I was told by a nurse that I can't go blind from dry eye but on the internet it says it's rare but does happen.

My biggest problem is that for the last few years I've become depressed from having dry eyes, I think I'm going to go blind from it. My medication makes the dry eye worse but because it does it's job the doctor says it's better to treat the dry eye so I'm drops on top of restasis. The dry eyes seem to get drier as time goes by and I've adopted a "what's the point if I'm going to go blind" mentality. I won't even get a job it makes me want to do nothing. My question is does anybody else suffer from dry eyes and run into similar problems? and how long have you had it? If I heard some people say that they've been living with dry eye for 10 to 20 years and haven't lost their eyesight I might find some hope

[mossrose]

My sister has had dry eyes for as long as I can remember, and she is about 70. She's used drops for a very long time and has no signs of blindness.

I was also diagnosed with dry eyes about a month ago, and have been using drops since. There could be a genetic basis for both she and I, and I have asked what type of drops she uses. (Haven't heard from her yet.....). Our eyes produce 2 kinds of moisture, one watery and the other more oily. I am not producing as much of the oily type, so have to use a drop that supplies lipids. That's why I wanted to find out from my sister whether she has the same type of deficiency.

Lots of things can contribute to dry eyes. I suspect mine is partly genetic, partly because I am on anti-anxiety meds as well as antihistimines, and partly due to the fact that I am past menopause, which causes all sorts of changes to the mucous membranes. You may have 2 out of 3 of those conditions.........

I think you shouldn't worry. I think you should use your drops and not be concerned about whether you will go blind or not. Odds of that happening BECAUSE of dry eye are very slim.

Welcome back, btw.